ZING

Who they support

Early stage UK charities not focussed solely at a local/community level.

  • The average annual spending of grantees has been £6 million
  • The average age of charities supported has been 8 years.

Grant criteria

ZING supports early stage organisations whose outcomes are focused on young people realising their potential. Funding We actively seek out a small number of diverse organisations each year and provide unrestricted grants. We have invested over £4,000,000 since 2011. Connections Through the ZING Forum and broader network we connect our partners with a wide range of expertise, other funders and other collaborative youth-oriented organisations. Technology ZING provides digital technology advice and select services to our partners, the broader youth charity network, and funders.

Regional preferences: UK

Grant details

Typically £25-35,000

Application procedure

We do not run a grant application process and proactively seek out our partners, but we love to hear from early stage inspiring charities and social entrepreneurs. We do not fund individual local or community based organisations, and currently only fund initiatives based in the UK.

www.zing.org.uk

hello@zing.org.uk

020 3058 3463

ZING c/o Yoti Ltd
6th Floor. 107 Leadenhall Street
LONDON
EC3A 4AF


Charity registered in England & Wales, No: 1133342
Charity Commission for England and WalesTwitter
Analysis of Grants Made
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In this period 44 donations have been made totalling £1,236,000 to 27 organisations

Where are the Beneficiaries?
How big are the Recipients? ?
Which activities are being funded?
How old were the charities when supported?
Growth in Spending
(per annum over last 3 years)
Main Overlaps with other Grant Makers ?
By ValueBy Number
ZING 68% 67%
Paul Hamlyn Foundation 37% 30%
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation 22% 15%
The National Lottery Community Fund 19% 19%
The Blagrave Trust 16% 11%
Mission 44 15% 7%
Garfield Weston Foundation 12% 11%
The Dulverton Trust 11% 7%
Comic Relief 10% 11%
Wates Family Enterprise Trust 8% 4%
Sole supporter: 33% by number, 32% by value.
Individual Grants Made
When Amount Annual
Spending
Grantee To be used for
01/10/2023 £25,000 RELATABLE ROLEMODELS C.I.C. Relatable Role Models works to empower young people who lack relatable role models in the community. Working with those in and out of education, they build trusting relationships to identify and meet their needs, walk alongside them, and encourage them to maximise their potential. They provide one-to-one mentoring and engaging community projects such as pop-up youth spaces, mobile music studios, and Lived Experience workshops that cover a range of topics like: identity, gang culture, knife crime and youth violence, children exploitation, healthy relationships, and career paths.
01/10/2023 £25,000 MILK HONEY BEES CIC Milk and Honey Bees is an expressive, safe space that allows young women and girls to flourish and take ownership of H.E.R (Healing, Empowerment and Resilience) through 1:1 sessions and creative group projects. They aim to enable young women and girls - who are often deemed as hard to engage - to express creatively, give them the chance to feel supported and access opportunities, as well as gain skills to navigate in society. Milk and Honey is a project that supports young women on their journey of healing whilst equipping them with social, employment and life skills that enable them to mobilise in their communities.
01/10/2023 £25,000 £175,011 PARADIGM PROJECT During the COVID-19 pandemic, year 7’s faced unprecedented disruption to their education, either through missing learning time, school closures, or reduced engagement through virtual learning. Joel Dunn, founder of Paradigm Project, collected data on students transitioning from year six to year seven, and the teachers working with them, to better understand the impact of COVID-19, and presented his findings through: "Bridge the Gap 2021". Growing out of this report, Paradigm Project is centred around fighting social inequality and unlocking the potential in the lives of disadvantaged young people. They address complex youth issues through proactive and preventative methods at a young age, to disrupt negative cycles at the earliest opportunity. Currently, the team runs two programmes: - "My Next Steps" focuses on the transition of students from primary to secondary school, where students co-produce their student profile (vision, goals and support needs), with follow-up mentoring through the transition to year seven where needed. - "Early Help" is a comprehensive 12 month programme of one-to-one, group mentoring and professional training, delivered with children, young people, and families with indicators of emerging difficulties or additional needs.
01/04/2023 £25,000 CENTRE FOR KNOWLEDGE EQUITY CIC The New Society aims to inspire the next generation of leaders, community workers, creatives, promotors, producers and artists coming out of Brighton and its surrounding areas. Founded by Bobby Brown, a young change maker in Brighton, New Society takes a youth-led, collaborative approach, working with youth & community organisations, art institutions, venues, commercial brands and the wider music industry. Through a youth led and trauma informed approach, they aim to: raise aspiration levels and provide paid opportunities for some of the most marginalised young people, provide platforms for emerging talent, develop alternative systems of working and living, and use emerging technology to empower young people and society at large. Bobby and his team has worked with local organisations including AudioActive, the Trust for Developing Communities, Platform B, Brighton CCA, Brighton Dome and Lighthouse Arts, as well as global brands like Adidas, Nike & Red Bull. This funding is to resource and support a fellowship with the Centre for Knowledge Equity, supporting Bobby to elevate his work with disadvantaged and marginalised young people in Brighton.
01/03/2023 £30,000 £24,000 BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS UK FOUNDATION Big Brothers Big Sisters UK has replicated the US model in Oxford since 2017, supporting 60+ children and their families. Throughout the pandemic, they began to develop a web app to support the management team in the monitoring and support of their volunteer Big Brothers and Big Sisters. The team has starting to replicate the adapted model in other local authorities across the South with local partners. This funding is for the continued iteration of the platform to support Oxford and new local authorities in their roll out of the programme, supporting growth and continued quality assurance. This funding is unrestricted, and covers the year two development costs of BBBSUK's roadmap into new local authorities, iterating their support of partner organisations in each location (including Surrey and West Sussex).
01/02/2023 £10,000 £6,902 THE 93 PERCENT CLUB FOUNDATION The 93% Club is a members' club for people who went to state schools. They aim to dismantle the class inequality that exists in Britain today through the power of community, by bringing together thousands of like-minded individuals across the country to break down the structural barriers to social mobility and build a future that’s fairer for the next generation. The current 'system' is not broken - it works incredibly well at serving those it was designed for: keeping power with those of privilege, status and wealth. Starting with a Facebook group in 2016, a community of students who did not come from wealthy backgrounds assembled, quickly growing to 10k+ strong across more than 45 universities. This is the UK's least exclusive members club - the 93% of people who went to state schools in the UK, and who occupy a much smaller percentage of the top roles: 34% of FTSE 350 CEOs, 35% of senior judges, 43% of the House of Lords, 56% of journalists... The 93% club brings together professionals and state school students, providing: access to life-changing career advice, courses and expert lectures in social mobility; empowering members to realise their potential by volunteering and mentoring; and running regular social and network events across the UK. Through a growing network of leading employers, members can also access employability training, CV clinics, job opportunities and career change support. This unrestricted funding is to help grow the team (who are currently volunteers), providing headspace to seek further funding, and begin to scale up capacity to work with more employers.
01/11/2022 £25,000 GROW2KNOW CIC Based in West London, North Kensington, members of the community unified through guerrilla gardening as a way of healing in response to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. With no plan or strategy, the community turned to nature to gather and unify in what was a baron, neglected and unloved space. A transformation occurred as people came together to dig, plant and discuss and the space came to be known as the Grenfell Garden of Peace. The community would then go on to reclaim three more spaces – completely unresourced: Acklam Nature Project, Maxilla Nursery, Kingsnorth House. Grow2Know’s heart lies in reclaiming space and reconnecting people with nature and each other. Putting community at the forefront in the creation of public, outdoor spaces, Grow2Know is pioneering a model that pivots on consultation, collaboration, and place-making. Building partnerships to activate spaces, the grassroots non-profit is committed to inspiring a culture change to implement more sustainable systems that promote biodiversity, circular economies and regenerative practices. Grow2Know is on a mission to inspire, heal and educate through horticulture – embarking on a journey to make gardening more inclusive and nature accessible to all. Tayshan Hayden-Smith, born & raised in North Kensington, brought love & life to his community surrounding Grenfell Tower, initiating the ‘Grenfell Garden of Peace’ among several other pivotal green spaces in the local area, adopting the name The Grenfell Guerrilla Gardener at the time. Tayshan is a young man of mixed heritage & is passionate about being a part of a more inclusive environment on the horticultural scene, keen to empower young people through gardening & nature. This grant is for core costs, to give Tayshan and his team more time away from commissioned projects to plan their growth, proactively pitch for new projects, and unlock more ways for them to work in person, including access to office space.
01/10/2022 £30,000 COCO OPERATIVE COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY The Power App will be a new pilot service for social workers, children and their families, grounded in effective behavioural change models and technology that we all know and use. It will enable social workers to co-produce behavioural change with children and families as experts by experience, empowering families to take ownership of their work plans, regularly keep in touch with/update their social worker, and significantly reduce the time social workers need for admin, maximising the time they can spend supporting each family.
01/10/2022 £20,000 CREATIVE OPPS CIO Creative Opps gives young people access to the tools, networks, and experience that they need to independently achieve their ambitions. They deliver user-led programmes, designed by and for young people, to support members in creating positive change for themselves and their communities. Whether this be through mentoring, work experience, or social action, they work to unlock potential and make a lasting impact on a young person’s life. Over the next three years, they plan to deliver three core programmes, each designed to support young people to create positive change for themselves and their communities, and allow Creative Opportunities to build a self-sustaining trading entity. These are: paid work placements, mentoring and cooperative membership. ZING's funding will be primarily toward the support of work placement and mentoring.
01/10/2022 £25,000 HER PATH TO PURPOSE CIC Her Path to Purpose CIC exists to equip and empower young women to lead purposeful lives. Their mission is to provide skill-building opportunities and resources to equip young women with the essential tools to advance personally and professionally, and their vision is to see young women discovering their passion, striving to achieve their purpose and growing in confidence. They support young women through the following programmes: mentoring and coaching (curriculum based, 1:1), mental health support (free access to online and in-person counselling with qualified practioners), employability support, and school empowerment programmes (developing confidence and self-esteem through a variety of workshops and events). Since their debut in 2018, they have impacted the lives of 5000+ women and provided over 150 hours of free mental health counselling. This grant is to support core costs, including employment of the founder, Nicole Robinson-Edwards, and a Programmes Officer, to increase capacity and give Nicole time toward generating income and developing the fundraising strategy.
01/09/2022 £30,000 UNLOC In response to the April 2020 UK lockdown, Unloc rapidly built and launched Unloc.online, a new interactive e-learning platform, providing a series of online short courses designed to encourage students aged 11-19 to explore entrepreneurship, employability, leadership and career pathways from the comfort of their own home. The team continues to iterate the platform and add new content with partners, driven by a desire to support the development of young people’s aspirations, skills and career prospects into the fast changing labour market. The platform is also being embedded as a core component of the more traditional in-person programmes Unloc would run in Colleges, further enriching the programme, and providing continued value once they formally end.
01/06/2022 £35,000 £2,537,437 THE BLAGRAVE TRUST Challenge and Change is a fund, moving into their second cohort, dedicated to supporting the limitless energy of young people affected by injustices who are working tirelessly across England to create positive change. This fund is available to applicants 18-25 years old, working at the hard edge of injustice, and who have radical ideas, dreams, visions, and imaginations for a just and fair world for all. The fund offers a package of mentoring and network support to help take their work to the next level.
01/05/2022 £25,000 THE LILY-JO PROJECT CIC In 2021, The Lily Jo Project partnered with Place2Be to work with 50 schools in the north west, alongside collaborations with Youth Voices and BeWell. They continue to work on partnerships, and are now in a position to tour more schools with assemblies and other school events, with their platform of content to support teachers in lesson planning before and after they leave. This funding round is unrestricted, to cover further core costs.
01/04/2022 £35,000 £178,861 LEARNING WITH PARENTS Learning with Parents are establishing themselves as the thought and action leader on embedding parental engagement in all aspects of school curriculum. To cope with increased demand on their services, our previous rounds of funding supported the hiring of a CTO, initial improvements to the back-end platform (in response to sudden increased demand during Covid-19 lockdowns), the redevelopment of the platform for both maths and english programmes, and further in-kind support under our digital stream. This funding round is toward to its continued development, related digital projects, and other core costs.
01/01/2022 £30,000 £258,115 FAIR EDUCATION ALLIANCE Funding and in-kind digital support toward the roll out of a digital transformation programme. This strand covers the auditing of the FEA membership, regularly gathering membership data for both the secretariat and members, and the piloting of tools to effectively leverage this data, aiming to improve collaboration across the membership. This is core funding toward covering the role of a digital project manager, and the piloting of tools with the membership.
01/10/2021 £30,000 ROOT 73 LTD Root 73 is an artist development platform, a fully equipped recording studio, and a record label, managed by a group of young people born and raised in Hackney. During Covid-19 lockdown the team released their community project "The Silhouettes Project", a platform to shine a light on the next generation of up and coming Hip-Hop, Soul and Jazz artists in the UK. It provides an open space - a recording studio and live venue (located within the Total Refreshment Centre in Hackney, London) - where MCs, singers, musicians and producers can connect and create. The project achieved national recognition on BBC Radio 1, and the project's album album has over 3m streams, more than 500 vinyl sold, and more than 50k views on YouTube. Root 73's approach places heavy emphasis on community activity and on the social importance of working together for a common goal, while also bringing together all the necessary elements needed to help artists break into the music industry. Root73 is largely self-funded by community events, paid sessions at their studio, and crowd-funders, with heavy reliance on unpaid volunteering. This funding is to toward the core costs of securing paid expertise, as the platform increases its sources of revenue, from the record label, events and studio hire. This will also support the team in replicating their disruptive model in other communities around the country.
01/09/2021 £30,000 THE SOCIAL CHANGE NEST CIC Core funding for continuing the Young Trustee's Movement to increase the diversity of people on charity trustee boards, starting with a focus on doubling the number of young people under 30 on boards in the UK, by 2024.
01/09/2021 £30,000 UNLOC In response to the April 2020 UK lockdown, Unloc rapidly built and launched Unloc.online, a new interactive e-learning platform, providing a series of online short courses designed to encourage students aged 11-19 to explore entrepreneurship, employability, leadership and career pathways from the comfort of their own home. The team continues to iterate the platform and add new content with partners, driven by a desire to support the development of young people’s aspirations, skills and career prospects into the fast changing labour market.
01/09/2021 £30,000 £24,000 BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS UK FOUNDATION Big Brothers Big Sisters UK has replicated the US model in Oxford since 2017, supporting 60+ children and their families. Throughout the pandemic, they began to develop a web app to support the management team in the monitoring and support of their volunteer Big Brothers and Big Sisters. The team has starting to replicate the adapted model in other local authorities across the South with local partners. This funding is for the continued iteration of the platform to support Oxford and the new local authorities in their roll out of the programme, supporting growth and continued quality assurance.
11/06/2021 £35,000 £54,245,000 CATCH 22 A third grant to support the core costs of recruitment, development and technology for the opening of Lighthouse's first children's home, planned for fall 2021.
01/04/2021 £25,000 THE LILY-JO PROJECT CIC Core funding toward the completion of the Lily-Jo project's Key Stage weekly lesson curriculum; alignment to the new mandatory RSHE framework in schools; improving the student, teacher and parent user journeys through their website; and growth, including a campaign to coincide with Mental Health Awareness week.
01/04/2021 £35,000 £178,861 LEARNING WITH PARENTS Learning with Parents are establishing themselves as the thought and action leader on embedding parental engagement in all aspects of school curriculum. To cope with increased demand on their services, our last round of funding supported the hiring of a CTO, and improvements to the back-end platform (in response to sudden increased demand during Covid-19 lockdowns), with further in-kind support under our digital stream. The team have since rebuilt their back-end platform, and this funding round is toward to its continued development, related digital projects, and other core costs.
01/02/2021 £35,000 £18,520,000 ABSOLUTE RETURN FOR KIDS (ARK) Year three of core funding toward the development and scaling of Get Further's catch-up maths and english tuition programme, for students in further education. This funding round has been passed through Ark, for matched funding under the Ark Community Match Challenge.
01/02/2021 £20,000 £551,215 THE DIFFERENCE EDUCATION LTD Incubated by The Difference, London Reconnect is a collaborative group of London-wide school system-leaders, who have joined together to address learning loss caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The network spans the system. Local authority, foundation and MAT schools as well as government, philanthropists, corporate and third sector organisations are driven by a pledge: to quickly bring about change for disadvantaged and vulnerable young Londoners and make up lost ground in the wake of the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of Londonʼs children have faced food poverty and fallen on the wrong side of the digital divide. Hungry, and struggling to access education online, social isolation has worsened the picture. Serious mental health problems have risen during the pandemic; as have domestic violence reports, and reports of teenage criminal exploitation. This funding is unrestricted, including funding toward a project director.
01/01/2021 £35,000 £258,115 FAIR EDUCATION ALLIANCE Funding and in-kind digital support toward the roll out of a digital transformation programme. This strand covers the auditing of the FEA membership, regularly gathering membership data for both the secretariat and members, and the piloting of tools to effectively leverage this data, aiming to improve collaboration across the membership. This is core funding toward covering the role of a digital project manager, and the piloting of tools with the membership.
01/01/2021 £35,000 £603,171 GET FURTHER Unrestricted core funding, matched with the Community Fund, via ARK.
01/11/2020 £35,000 £551,215 THE DIFFERENCE EDUCATION LTD Seed funding toward year two of The Difference's school leadership programme, and the recruitment and training of The Difference's third cohort of leaders. This is a new career route, creating specialist teaching leaders positioned to drive inclusion in schools, and improve outcomes for the UK’s most vulnerable young people.
01/11/2020 £35,000 THE REALLY NEET PROJECT Core funding to cover staff costs, supporting the development of a project in The Midlands, which will replicate and adapt the Really NEET model outside of South Yorkshire and London.
01/09/2020 £30,000 UNLOC COVID19 response funding. In response to the April 2020 UK lockdown, Unloc rapidly built and launched Unloc.online, a new interactive e-learning platform, providing a series of online short courses designed to encourage students aged 11-19 to explore entrepreneurship, employability, leadership and career pathways from the comfort of their own home. The team is iterating the platform and addding new content with partners, driven by a desire to support the development of young people’s aspirations, skills and career prospects coming out of COVID-19 and into the fast changing labour market.
01/09/2020 £10,000 THE SOCIAL CHANGE NEST CIC Core funding for continuing the Young Trustee's Movement to increase the diversity of people on charity trustee boards, starting with a focus on doubling the number of young people under 30 on boards in the UK, by 2024 (currently 3%).
01/09/2020 £35,000 £2,617,639 THE BLAGRAVE TRUST Challenge and Change is a fund dedicated to supporting the limitless energy of young people affected by injustices who are working tirelessly across England to create positive change. This fund was available to applicants 18-25 years old, working at the hard edge of injustice, and who have radical ideas, dreams, visions, and imaginations for a just and fair world for all. The fund offerred a package of mentoring and network support to help take their work to the next level.
01/07/2020 £15,000 £1,151,430 WE SEE HOPE Core funding in response to COVID19, toward coverage of a shortage in event fundraising, which was due to run during the UK lockdown.
01/07/2020 £15,000 £3,225,273 NPC Paul Hamlyn Foundation are covering Phase 2 of the MyBestLife project, running design sprints with young people from the user base of UK Youth, The Mix, Leap and Princes Trust. Founders and Coders are the digital partner on this project, and the next phase will be to prototype the most compelling solutions and build through to MVP. This funding is toward the development of these prototypes.
01/07/2020 £35,000 £54,245,000 CATCH 22 To support the core costs of recruitment, development and technology for the opening of Lighthouse's first children's home.
01/04/2020 £35,000 £1,151,430 WE SEE HOPE Core funding in response to COVID19, toward coverage of a shortage in event fundraising, which was due to run during the UK lockdown.
01/04/2020 £35,000 LEARNING WITH PARENTS In response to COVID19, Learning with Parents has seen an overwhelming increase in demand for their parental engagement tool Maths with Parents. To cope with increased demand on the platform across the UK, and the roll out of improvements to the service, we have given core funding toward the salary of an interim CTO, and the back end platform, and digital support/ connections toward the rebuilding of their front-end website.
01/02/2020 £25,000 GET FURTHER Funding to cover a Head of Programmes and Partnership role, freeing up capacity from programme delivery onto sales, fundraising and strategy.
01/01/2020 £35,000 £258,115 FAIR EDUCATION ALLIANCE Funding and digital support toward the roll out of a digital transformation programme, as the Fair Education Alliance becomes independent from Teach First. This strand covers the auditing of the FEA membership, regularly gathering membership data for both the secretariat and members, and the piloting of tools to effectively leverage this data, aiming to improve collaboration across the membership. This core funding covers the role of a project manager in 2020, who will manage the execution of a digital transformation plan, including member audit and digital FEA member services.
01/01/2020 £30,000 £57,352 SHIFT ORGANISATION LTD Funding toward a pilot of the WIT's model over 18 months in five local authority areas. WIT will work alongside 25 young people and their families per area, building relationships so that the 18 months of intensive work is outcome focussed and impactful.
01/12/2019 £36,000 THE REALLY NEET PROJECT Core funding to cover staff costs, supporting the development of a project in London, which will replicate and adapt the Really NEET model outside of South Yorkshire.
01/09/2019 £30,000 £551,215 THE DIFFERENCE EDUCATION LTD Seed funding toward the recruitment and training of The Difference's second cohort of leaders (now a registered charity). A new career route, creating specialist teaching leaders positioned to drive inclusion in schools, and improve outcomes for the UK’s most vulnerable young people.
01/09/2019 £10,000 £2,617,639 THE BLAGRAVE TRUST Core funding toward the start of movement to increase the diversity of people on charity trustee boards, starting with a focus on doubling the number of young people under 30 on boards in the UK, by 2024 (currently 3%).
31/07/2019 £30,000 PEACE FIRST Project funding to expand upon Peace First's platform analytics, building a greater understanding of the participant user journey, including any points of attrition. This work will also enable future A/B testing of different types of intervention/support, and their effectiveness when implemented at different stages of the journey.
22/05/2019 £25,000 £54,245,000 CATCH 22 To support the core costs of recruitment, development and technology for the opening of Lighthouse's first children's home.
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